The Real Jesus…Values People Over Religion

On By ryannunez

How can this be?  I thought Jesus was all about religion.  He was a religious figure after all.  And didn’t he start the Christian religion?

 

Our church community has been reading, and I have been teaching, through the book of Luke leading up to Easter.  This statement about Jesus, Relationships and Religion  was examined this past weekend.

 

We saw that as Jesus went about His ministry of preaching and teaching about the kingdom of God he also performed many miracles and healed people.  The focus was not THAT He healed them, but HOW He healed them.  Check out these three passages (emphasis added is mine).

 

Luke 5:13 

      Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared.

 

Luke 7:13-14 

      When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. 14Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.”

 

Luke 7:44-48

      “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.

         47 “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” 48 Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

 

These three snapshots in the book of Luke are each independent of each other, yet illustrate the same heart of Jesus.  Jesus was more concerned about people than religious and cultural norms and practices.

 

  • You NEVER touch or get close to a leper. (Leviticus 13)
  • You do not touch a dead body, coffin or grave unless you have to. (Numbers 19)
  • You separate and avoid contact with sinful people.

 

These three passages would have caused a gasp in the crowds watching Jesus.  No one crossed these boundaries.  No one openly and publicly broke these rules.  Yet here we have Jesus stepping across these invisible boundaries for the sake of people.

 

One might be tempted to position Jesus as a religious rebel, throwing out ALL religious rules and customs. But this is not the case either. For example…

 

-After the leper is healed, He tells him to present himself to the priests for the ceremonial cleansing (Leviticus 14).

-Jesus and his disciples go to the temple and synagogues to worship. (Luke 21)

-Jesus and the disciples celebrate Passover before his death. (Luke 22)

 

He is not upending religious practices for the sake of making a statement. Jesus is not a rebel without a cause. But when a person and a practice come in conflict…the person wins every time with Jesus.  With Jesus…people matter.

 

You can check out the full service from this weekend or just the message at http://www.palmvalley.org/messages/realjesus

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